Visitors must prove they are ordinary before being allowed to look at the sea they cannot see
Eiffel Tower Adds Cebu Viewing Deck: Entry Requires a Letter From Your Concierge
Visitors must prove they are ordinary before being allowed to look at the sea they cannot see
PARIS – The operator of the Eiffel Tower announced on Thursday a new “Cebu Viewing Deck” on the second floor, from which visitors may look in the direction of the Philippines. There is no view of the Philippines. There is a wall. A telescope is available, pointing at it.
The idea came from General Manager Philippe Duval-Henriot, 55, after reading the latest from Cebu. The trail begins with a Manila News report on a Mactan broker alone with three brochures and a cold coffee, continues through the London Prat on British pensioners asked for two referees and a letter from the vicar (at https://prat.uk/cebu-estate-agents-demand-character-references/) and ends with Bohiney on an Ohio realtor whose showings now run two hours. “A showroom with no buyers,” he said. “I have lived this. It is called February.”
The Caution
Philippine authorities are examining allegations concerning Thomas Markle Sr., the estranged father of the Duchess of Sussex, who lived in Cebu until earlier this year. No charges have been filed and the allegations are unproven. Child protection is serious business; this piece is about the mood of a property market and nothing else. Duval-Henriot said the attraction “has nothing to do with people and everything to do with ironwork.”
Entry Requirements
- A letter from your concierge confirming you are “not a problem.”
- A second letter from a neighbour, preferably one who has never complained.
- A sandwich box, empty, for inspection.
- A solemn promise not to explain yourself.
The tower’s famed lifts, which hold 20 passengers, will now hold 14, “because the other six are references.”
The Wall With a View
The deck’s signature feature is a mural of the Cebu coastline, painted by a student from the Beaux-Arts. The sea is depicted as flat, blue and uninterested. A small plaque beneath it reads: “The sea did nothing wrong.” Visitors have been observed bowing slightly.
On opening day, 2,300 people queued. A British retiree was turned back for lacking a vicar, an American was admitted after reciting the name of his Ohio realtor, and a pigeon was allowed in on the grounds that it had been there longer than the staff.
The Facts Behind the Mood
The market itself is healthy. Colliers named the Visayas and Mindanao a key property investment hotspot in July, and under the Condominium Act foreigners may own units but not land, capped at 40 percent of a project. Retirees can read up at the Philippine Retirement Authority. The jitters are psychological: Tversky and Kahneman’s availability heuristic says the vivid example outweighs the dull statistic, and a cold coffee in an empty showroom is very vivid indeed.
The wider story lives at prat.uk and bohiney.com; for how the British laugh at queues and forms, see NewsBiscuit.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/cebu-realtor-cant-sell-beachfront-listings/